As a young teenager, I developed a romantic fantasy with no logical foundation on which to stand. I created for myself a treasured world, gradually convinced of its reality. In the middle of my world stood Jonathan Simmons, god-like: worshiped, desired, untouchable.

Jonathan did not have much to his name: twenty years, a job as a field hand, and a dobro. The third of these was the most significant. It was his Orphean lyre, and with it, every Saturday night, he played the bluegrass songs of the sirens. The way that boy made the dobro wail, I promise you, it was unearthly. Its mournful, ethereal groans glided right over the crowd of blue-gray-haired ladies and men in boots and bowlows, straight into the core of my being, as if, as I believed, he had created each eerie mountain ballad just for me.

I sat in the cold, metal folding chairs of local bluegrass joints as a regular weekend activity. My dad played the upright bass in the same band, the rouse under which I returned week after week. And weekly the attraction grew more intense and deeply rooted. I made my affection painfully known, ever encouraged by the winsome smiles Jonathan seemed to flash directly at me as he made that dobro sing. His eyes would meet mine, and he would stand up on his toes and work his magic on those strings. In this position, leaning into the microphone for his break, he was irresistable, and I was insatiable. The muscles in his beautiful, field-hand-tanned arms tensed and moved about with his intricate fingerings on the strings. His face was concentrated and passionate. And those hands, strong, callused, magic. The sight swelled up sensations unknown to me before. I believed whole-heartedly that my feelings were returned, and the thought consumed me.

And then it ended. Abruptly, without warning, my golden-haloed world was torn from me, and I lay crushed and innocent in the wreckage of my own self-deceit. Never had I been so aware of my childishness. The vast expanse separating me from Jonathan was blindingly obvious.

The girl was trashy, and possessed everything I lacked. Her hair was unconvincingly dyed, face caked in makeup concealing any imperfections, her symmetrical, kissable lips glossed to perfection and parted sensually. Her clothes clung to her wraith-like figure. Her skin was bared, freakishly brown. But she was beautiful–easy, cheap, porn star beautiful.

I watched Jonathan play for her, tip-toed and smiling, and I hated him. Because he gave his heart–and arms and hands and tip-toes–so cherished, so desired by the innocence of my lily white, untouched youth–to this gaudy, used, cheap carnation of a girl (and to how many like her before?) I hated him.

I was not ignorant. The embarrassing, bitter truth lay blatantly before me. For years I had deluded myself to think that this dobro player could be mine, but I was useless to him. And bitterly, I hurled my golden, chisled god to the ground, and glared at the foolish, bluegrass-playing redneck who remained.

The girl didn’t even like bluegrass.